Counting
by occludes
Summary: Remus has kissed Severus a total of eleven times.


Remus has kissed Severus a total of eleven times.

Granted, four of those kisses were in a row. Quick pecks to his mouth while Severus was attempting to tell him to _stop that right this instant, Lupin_, except the words were broken up with Remus' mouth pressing to his.

So, seven times, and a cluster-of-four.

Remus doesn't know what this means, because they've never spoken of it. The first time was rather by accident; Severus had been tutoring him after Potions, had grown annoyed and impatient with Remus' inability to just _get the bloody measurements right _and Remus thought he was rather charming in his irritation, and so impulse seized him and...Remus kissed him. Severus, in his flailing, had knocked over a cauldron and spilled a potted mandrake to the floor. (Remus' ears are grateful the pot didn't break.)

But Severus didn't scold him for it, so Remus has taken it to mean he can kiss him when he pleases, in the brief moments they find alone in the halls between classes. They kiss but they don't talk about it so Remus isn't sure what it means—if it means anything at all—and it leaves him rather befuddled when Valentine's Day creeps upon them.

Of course the students jump at any excuse to pass around tacky cards and love notes to those they've been eying. James has spent three weeks crafting some super-secret Valentine for Lily Evans, something that Remus might have the intelligence to worry about were he not worrying about his own troubles instead. Because he and Severus aren't anything, but they _are_, so does he get him a gift? If he does and Severus thinks there is nothing, Remus will have made quite a fool of himself and quite possibly lost kissing-privileges while Severus mutters to his fellow Slytherins that the dolt from Gryffindor is a bit creepy and off his rocker.

If he _doesn't_, and Severus _is_ expecting something...

Remus decides the second scenario is worse than the first, so he jumps on the bandwagon and stays up late the night before, bent over old parchment and paper cut-outs. Things Lily was kind enough to give him because he hadn't the money to buy his own on such short notice, and because she was the only one he could trust not to make a big deal that he asked at all. She'd handed over the supplies with a quirked eyebrow and a tilt of her head while Remus muttered an embarrassed _thank you_ and fled.

When he's finished, he cleans up the scraps leftover and fetches James' cloak from his trunk while his friends snore unaware. He has to deliver this _now_, before he loses his nerve, or worse—before someone wakes and undoubtedly finds his ridiculous and shabbily made Valentine. (Most likely Sirius. Because Sirius has an uncanny ability of finding out anything and everything embarrassing to Remus and never letting him live it down.)

Remus lets himself down to the dungeons, grateful the password into the Slytherin common rooms has not changed since James and Sirius and Peter snuck in here last week to charm Regulus' shoes into tap-dancing every time their wearer spoke. He's now in a pit of vipers and he's never dared come in here alone, but alone he is, and it takes him some wandering before he locates Severus' bed—thankfully with Severus asleep soundly inside of it.

He places a hand over Severus' mouth. Severus startles awake, eyes wide, until he sees Remus' face peeking out from beneath the invisibility cloak, and then his gaze darkens. Remus beckons him silently out of his bed and beneath the cloak, out of the Slytherin rooms and deeper into the dungeons where it's bloody _cold_, but at least it's private.

Severus shoves the cloak back, breathing in deep. "That thing is foul."

"Peter tried to hex someone's trousers into smelling of unwashed kneazle," Remus admits. "It rather backfired. James hasn't been able to get the odor out."

"Why am I not surprised." He makes a face. "Are you going to tell me why, exactly, I've been dragged out of my room in the middle of the night?"

Remus gives him something of a sheepish smile. The Valentine crinkles in his hand, but he's having doubts now about whether he ought to give it over. It's a rather silly thing, isn't it? More of a girls thing, even. The blokes only do it for the girls to get their attention, and the girls do it for the boys in hopes of the same thing—but according to Sirius, it doesn't quite work that way. (Says the man who will undoubtedly have a box full of the things come the end of the day.)

"Well," he says carefully, "that is...you see. Tomorrow—oh, well, rather today now, isn't it? Today is a day, a rather special day..."

"Get on with it, Lupin. Complete sentences."

"Valentine's Day," Remus blurts. Severus stares at him blankly. Heat begins creeping into Remus' cheeks. "I thought—everyone ought to get a Valentine at least once in their life."

Severus' thin eyebrows slowly raise. "...You got me a Valentine."

"Yes. Ah, no. That is..." His voice wavers. He offers out the—now slightly wrinkled—Valentine in the shape of a heart, with a square of parchment in the middle containing a silly poem Remus spent hours on.

Severus takes it slowly, scanning over the neatly written words, but his expression doesn't betray whatever it is he's thinking. After a long moment he says, "You would think one who reads as much poetry as you do would be better at writing limericks."

A crooked, nervous smile pulls at Remus' mouth. "You would think, yes."

"The heart is also lopsided."

"It is."

"The parchment is wrinkled."

"It—ah. Yes. That happened when I came down here. It was sort of...—I didn't want to drop it or what have you and..."

"Lupin."

"—Yes."

Severus grabs his face, fingers digging into his jaw and dragging him in close. He kisses Remus hard, a little clumsily, but it's a kiss and Remus is quite pleased, given he started his night worried he might lose kissing-privileges all together. Severus' mouth is always warm, surprisingly soft, about as aware of what he's doing as Remus is but it feels nice and that's really all that matters. Severus pulls back after a moment, their mouths still brushing.

"Shut up."

"Oh," he says, trying to remember how to breathe. Twelve. That makes twelve kisses. "Right." Then Severus kisses him again, and again, until Remus loses count all together.


End file.
